SUPPORT FOR THE "MAYDAY $5K" NATIONAL MOVEMENT FOR JOB STABILITY AND PARITY FOR PART-TIME FACULTY

WHEREAS, higher education institutions across the nation increasingly depend on underpaid, undervalued and undersupported adjuncts to teach the majority of their courses; and

WHEREAS, between 1975 and 2009 the percentage of part-time faculty nationally increased from 24 percent to 41 percent, and the percentage of tenured and tenure-track faculty nationally decreased from 45 percent to 24 percent;¹  and

WHEREAS, adjuncts earn on average nationally $2,700 per course, but teach more than 50 percent of college courses nationwide; and

WHEREAS, undergraduate student enrollment nationally has increased from 2.3 million students in 1947 to 20.6 million in 2012;²  and

WHEREAS, despite the huge increase in the number of students attending American colleges, all but a few of the 50 states have deepened the pattern of funding cuts for public higher education since the Great Recession, resulting in a national average cut in funding of more than 25 percent since 2008, while student tuition has correspondingly risen as a share of revenue, increasing to 44 percent of total operating revenue of public higher education institutions from 20 percent a quarter century ago;³  and

WHEREAS, cutting costs by hiring contingent faculty has been the linchpin of the austerity budget strategy, with the result that higher education is now in a labor crisis; and

WHEREAS, the two-tier labor system means that highly educated contingent workers receive poverty wages, have little job security or meaningful academic freedom, and are uncertain from one semester to the next whether they will be assigned enough classes to pay their bills, even though many are still paying back exorbitant student loans; and

WHEREAS, the abuse of contingent academic labor threatens the working conditions of all full-time faculty: It undercuts incentives to pay full-time faculty fairly, undermines academic freedom, increases managerial control, and places strain on full-time professors, whose research time is compromised because of an undue burden of advising, administrative and committee work; and

WHEREAS, the conditions under which contingent teachers are forced to work endanger the quality of higher education, short-changing our students and threatening the future of the nation; and

WHEREAS, institutions of higher education, with their special responsibility to model ethical conduct and enlightened practices, should be leaders in labor justice—not examples of the worst practices of neoliberal labor injustice; and

WHEREAS, the AFT has taken a leading role nationally in organizing contingent faculty, and represents more contingent faculty than any other union; and has invested substantial resources in defining the academic labor crisis, developing a national campaign for legislation on equity for part-time faculty and increased investment in full-time faculty, publicizing standards for best practices—including calling for pay parity—and advocating for improvements in federal laws and regulations on their behalf; and

WHEREAS, the AFT represents an important voice in the national conversation on the academic labor crisis:

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers promote the Mayday $5K National Mobilization for Equity as an allied campaign for academic labor fairness, recognizing the value of a national coalition campaign; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT support local affiliates that seek to achieve or exceed the Mobilization's goals, especially salaries of at least $5,000 per three-credit course, and that the AFT call national attention to the Mobilization's demands:

• Increase the starting salary of a three-credit course to a minimum of $5,000 for all instructors in higher education;
• Ensure academic freedom by providing progressively longer contracts for all contingent instructors who have proven themselves during an initial probationary period;
• Provide health insurance for all instructors, either through their college's health insurance system or through the Affordable Care Act;
• Support the quality of education of our students by providing their instructors with necessary office space, individual development support, telephones, email accounts and mailboxes;
• Guarantee fair and equitable access to unemployment benefits when colleges instructors are not working; and
• Guarantee eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to all college instructors who have taught for 10 years, during which they were repaying their student loans. 

¹ American Association of University Professors. (2011) It’s Not Over Yet: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2010-11, March-April 2011. Retrieved from AAUP: http://www.aaup.org/file/2010-11-Economlc-Status-Report.pdf.
²  Institute of Education Sciences. (2014). Total fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary Institutions, by attendance status, sex of student, and control of institution: Selected years, 1947 through 2012 (Table 303.10). Retrieved from National 2 Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_303.10.asp.
³  Draut, T. & HiItonsmith, R. (2014). The Great Cost Shift Continues: State Higher Education Funding After the Recession, March 6, 2014. Retrieved from Demos: http://www.demos.org/publication/great-cost-shift-continues-state-highe….